JEDDAH, 9 March 2007 — Misbehaving fans at football stadiums across the Kingdom is a problem that never used to exist. An upsurge in fans fighting, invading the pitch and damaging stadiums a few years ago was brought to an abrupt stop by a clampdown by the General Presidency of Youth Welfare (GPYW). However, the problem has now started again.
Mansour Al-Khudairi, undersecretary of GPYW, played down reports that the problem was a widespread one. “We don’t have stadium riots thank God. The incidents that happen every once in a while are considered to be isolated ones,” he said.
“The stiff punishment imposed by the presidency has helped to limit trouble during football matches and people are severely punished if they repeatedly misbehave,” he added.
Al-Khudairi believes that the media should play a positive role in increasing awareness about how fans should behave at matches and should not provoke crowds by writing irresponsibly. “Most fans are teenagers and can easily be influenced by what is written in newspapers. The media need to send important messages to increase awareness,” he said.
The GPYW official added that although disciplinary action has helped decrease incidents, nevertheless some fans continue to cause trouble. “What is important now is that the presidency, the media and clubs come together and unite to increase awareness. The best way to stop crowds behaving badly is by creating awareness. There are other ways to do this but we don’t want to do anything radical,” he said.
Salman Al-Namshan, president of the King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh, stressed that riots do not take place at Saudi football matches and that problems of misbehaving fans are restricted to isolated individuals.
“If we compare the Italian and German leagues and the type of riots that take place there with what’s happening in the Kingdom, then the situation isn’t that bad. What is happening in our stadiums is basically confined to young enthusiastic fans who want attention by running across pitches and then getting arrested in front of large crowds,” he said, adding that the media was contributing to the problem by filming and taking photographs of troublemakers and thus making them famous.
Al-Namshan added, “The GPYW rules and regulations have helped in putting a stop to such behavior and we hope our youth will respect these regulations. In order to put an end to this, club presidents should also stop issuing provocative statements. We generally find that teams that lose matches are the ones that issue fiery statements that only make fans even more tense.”
Manager of the Prince Faisal ibn Fahd Stadium in Riyadh, Muhammad Al-Otaibi, said that in order to put an end to the problem, families need to get involved.
“I also put the blame on the media for widely publicizing these activities. They immediately interview these fans and make them famous thus encouraging others to do the same and then be interviewed on television,” said Al-Otaibi.
He added that disciplinary action has been severe and misbehaving fans are banned from attending matches.
“I think that the best way to put an end to fans running into pitches is by disgracing them in newspapers and then imposing fines on them to make them an example. Such behavior is damaging to the reputation of the Saudi league,” he said.
Hasan Jamjoum, board member at Ittihad club, said that such behavior will continue as long as the media continues to glorify it. He also blamed newspapers for increasing the negative behavior and added that most fans are young and easily influenced.
